Shattered
by Irrevocably Obsessed
Summary: When your crystal heart is nothing but a near-black orb, how do you deal with the pain? Bella must find a way to relieve herself of Distortion while finding the person who killed her mother, once an Alchemist. REWRITE OF Jar of Hearts. AU, AH.
1. Preface

**Preface.**

One week while I was in sixth grade, my reading class was learning about mythology. I don't remember much about it, but some details still remain. We had to act out one story in the mythology we were learning about, and even though I didn't like most of the people in my group, we did the story about Echo. I can't really recall the details, but I was cast in the group as Echo. My lines were easy since, well, I echoed everybody's lines pretty much. But I never really understood the story until recently, and it may not even be the actual meaning of the story. It was just how I interpreted it.

When something doesn't make sense to you, sometimes you completely forget about it, lost in the many fragments of thoughts in the back of your mind. They hardly will ever come up again, but if they do, it makes you think about it more than you thought it would. Then you're pretty much stuck in your own thoughts about something you never understood in the first place. You're left confused and afraid to ask someone else about it.

When I thought about this particular memory, I pretty much just sat back and thought about it for a good while. After a while of this, I had an epiphany of some sort, if that's the correct word to describe it.

What was an echo, anyway? Just a sound bouncing off a surface back to you? If you asked me, that's not really a significant meaning to the word. It means something else, something more to me. An echo could be anything – a thought, a sentence, lyrics. But I noticed that something needs to be repeated back to you in order for you to make sense. If something is wired into your brain enough for it to echo back to you in the long run, it's important. If it doesn't, then it's just a fragment that will soon deteriorate over time. It's insignificant.

If you ask me, I have a lot of echos.


	2. It's Just the Beginning, Riley

**Shattered is back in business.**

I don't know what motivated me to do this story again, but it was a great idea. I still need opinions about this because I was thinking about actually making this into a book. Like, write, publish, sell. That kind of thing. But I need your opinion. Is it just Fanfiction worthy, or world worthy?

Enjoy the chapter. :)

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**Chapter 1: ****It's Just the Beginning, Riley**

I scratched my chest absentmindedly—but the way that I tenderly rubbed my fingernails against the dry skin was what caused me to scream.

I've been doing this a lot lately. It doesn't hurt nearly as bad as what it used to, but it still fucking _stings._ And every single time that this happens, Riley always drops what he's doing and comes to check on me. No matter where he is, no matter what he's doing, he comes. Just like a patient in a hospital with a heart problem.

Actually, that is very similar to what I had going on with me, now that I thought about it.

I scrambled to get the smokiness back inside my chest. It was all pouring out and out of control. I could see the little specs of light that I had left in my crystal, the lines of life shining through the smoke and onto my hand. It was stupid and impossible, trying to catch smoke with your bare hands. But I managed to succeed in closing the hole most of the time. Riley wasn't an Alchemist, and I sure as hell wasn't, but anybody can close a case. You don't have to have special training to wag your fingers in a certain way.

Just as expected, Riley came hurdling down the stairs, his hard steps making the living room shake. "Bella," he cried, sounding like he just found me murdered.

I started breathing heavy, my chest heaving up and down, the smoke twirling with each rise and fall. It wasn't like a burning pain, it was a stabbing pain. Like sharp needles were trying to pry the skin away from each rib, my sternum completely ripped out.

Riley quickly appeared in front of me, his eyes glazed over with anguish and distress. He began to run his fingers in a specific pattern across my chest, but then something pulsed through me. Like the blood in my veins had tiny rocks in them and were pushed all the way through my body within a matter of a second.

Not again...

Riley was thrown off guard, pushed back from the pulse of power that came out of my chest. It was like a black orb that bubbled out and pushed him away. I stiffened with the pain that coursed through my body. He cried out in pain, but only staggered for a moment.

It was getting worse. I could feel the distortion inside of me become more and more powerful each day, but I didn't know that it was _this_ bad. Sometimes I could feel my crystal get more covered in shadow every day. It was like a storm cloud coming in on a warm, sunny afternoon. It kept getting closer and closer to masking up all the light.

The sharp pangs were starting to get worse now. Riley stood up rapidly, his fingers running anxiously through his messy blonde hair. His crystal was making mine hurt so much worse than it needed to be, but I couldn't move. I was completely stiff with pain. Feeling a pure crystal, especially from a descendant of an Alchemist, makes the process faster and hurt worse.

What else was I supposed to do? I couldn't leave. I loved him. I was caught between a rock and a hard place. No matter where I went, there were good crystals, pure crystals. It would get worse either way. I could be a Sirium right now and not even know it. God, I hated doing this to him.

I didn't even remember how to close my case. I would have to ask him later about it.

If their was a later, of course.

The pain was excruciating now. This was probably the worse distortion pain I've had in a while. The shadow was pouring through my entire body, and the smoke was starting to engulf me...

"Riley, please!" I cried out, my fists clenching whatever I was holding on to. "Please, make it stop!"

"I'm trying, I'm trying, wait!" he said, skilfully pushing the smoke back inside my case. It was quickly trying to grow right back to where it was, now crawling on my arms and stomach. It was getting so close...

Then it shut.

Everything was sucked back inside within half a second. The smoke was gone. The pain was gone. It was over.

For now...

I let out a huge sigh of relief. I felt tears pour out of my eyes, and my breathing started to quiver. I opened my eyes and looked down at Riley, kneeling in front of me, tears welling in his crystal blue eyes.

"Riley," I said, grabbing him and hugging him as tightly as I could. I clutched me tenderly but closely, his hand petting the back of my hair with a sweetness that made goosebumps crawl on my arms.

"Everything's okay now," he assured me. "You're okay. I'm okay..." He didn't sound one hundred percent sure on the last sentence, but I didn't think twice about it.

I loved Riley. I wanted to stay with him as long as I could. But I was hurting him, and he was hurting me. Unintentionally. I couldn't live with this burden much longer. I couldn't even go out with him as much as I could anymore. It felt amazing to be around him, but it also _hurt_. Anybody's crystal could bother me if it wasn't distorted, but it was so _pure..._

"I'm sorry," I managed to stutter out through my tears. There wasn't words to even begin to explain the meaning behind those two words.

"Bella, there's no need," he said, tenderly stroking my hair again. "I don't mind it."

_Why? How?_

"You shouldn't _have_ to do this in the first place," I said, holding him closer. "I'm such a burden..."

"Never." He drew me apart from him and made me look into his eyes. All I could see was purity, compassion, worry. His eyes spoke to me. "I care about you, never forget that," his eyes seemed to say.

Then his lips pressed against mine.

A dam burst inside of me, and all sorts of emotions flew out, almost as fast as the smoky shadows that had radiated off of my crystal. I didn't feel the typical pain I would get from being around his white crystal. I felt...human.

It was really sad for me to say that I didn't think I was human. I was supposed to be an Alchemist. My mom and dad were both Alchemists—well, I knew for a fact that my mom was. I didn't know shit about my dad.

But I was distorted. It was completely inevitable, but I didn't expect the pain to start so early. It started at the most horrible time, right as soon as my mother gave out her last living breath...

I was supposed to be taking care of her. She did what she had to do with the distorted, and then I had to take care of her afterward. When all she was worried about was getting attacked by a Sirium, I had to take care of the rest. I had to make sure that she didn't do anything stupid. She had a secret trust fund coming in from the Alchemist community, and I had my part time job at a sporting goods store. After she died and I started to feel the pain, I quit my job and the trust fund was brought over into my name instead of my mom's. I don't know how this happened, as non-Alchemists couldn't partake in the fund program they had, but I didn't complain.

I guess none of it really mattered right at the moment. What mattered to me the most was who was kissing me right now—no matter what I've done to him or what I've done to the house or myself, this man cared about me. That was absolutely hard to find nowadays. Someone who cared.

His full lips tenderly synced with mine, his hand snaking up behind my neck to bring me closer to him. I found my own hands in his hair, holding his soft blonde locks to hold him in place.

This was the greatest I've felt in years. The only thing that I've known for over four years was constant, undying pain. It has never ceased unless I've been completely isolated from human contact. Even then, the distortion has it's moments.

I broke away for a moment to catch my breath. My eyes started to flutter from drowsiness, a wave of fatigue now setting in. This was normal after my case gets accidentally opened. I get really tired and usually sleep for about twelve hours. I kissed him again, flicking my tongue on his lip, asking for access. He gladly opened his mouth for me, our tongues twirling together. I started to feel like I was falling and abruptly broke the kiss.

"Riley," I barely said. My eyes were having a hard time staying open. "I'm..."

"It's okay, Bella, I got you." He pecked me softly on the cheek and lifted me up swiftly and surely, carrying me in a mix of bridal-style and newborn-style. I rested my head against his shoulder, looking up at him. I was starting to see doubles of him; four blue eyes, two sets of blonde hair, two precise jawlines, four full lips...

I hit something soft and sighed. I was lifted again and put back down a moment later. A sheet was on me before I knew it, and the bed sunk a little next to me. I opened my eyes as best as I could and looked up at Riley, his happy face gone. Something was odd about his face. He only let me see one side of his face, only letting me see the left side. I tried to speak, but I couldn't find words.

"Shh, Bella," he soothed, stroking my hair again. "Everything is okay."

I tried to open my eyes further just to make sure what I was seeing was true, but I didn't want to say something stupid. The black on his face, the black veins on the side of his face...

"Is...Did I hurt you...?" I managed to say through my weariness. I tried to reach out to him, to cradle his head in my hand, but he pushed it gently down.

"I'm fine, Bella," he replied, his voice soothing. It was making me tired. I was starting to see doubles in my vision from being so tired.

"Your voice," I murmured. "It's..."

He chuckled when I couldn't finish. "Shh, Bella," he repeated. "You're okay now. Sleep, Bella." He stroked the side of my face, and I rested my head on his soft palm. "Sleep," he said again. "It's all over."

"It's just the beginning, Riley," I told him.

I didn't want to sleep. I wanted to see the other side of his face, to see if I hurt him. I've only seen this once before, and I didn't want the same thing to happen to Riley. It would spread rapidly across his skin, and the pain...If this was what I thought it was, I was surprised that he wasn't wincing in pain.

I thought about it too soon. I went to cradle his head again, touching the side that he wouldn't let me see. He jumped and squeezed his eyes shut, but he didn't make a sound. His skin was unusually warm and I could feel his blood pulsing underneath my hand. He let it go for a moment or two, but eventually grabbed my wrist gently and pulled my hand back down. He pulled my covers over top of me further, keeping me warm. I felt so cold.

"Bella," he said, his voice like honey, "I'm fine. I promise. Go to sleep. You'll wake up before you know it. I'll be here. I'm always here. Always and forever..."

I drifted off to sleep before he could finish, my mind still racing.

I woke up from my sleep, my heart beating erratically through my chest. I looked around quickly, seeing nobody but myself in Riley's room. I had forgotten the fact that he put me in his room instead of mine. It was right next to the stairs, so I guess he picked the closest room to put me in. Or he just wanted to sleep with me to make sure I was okay.

Whatever the reason, he wasn't next to me, or in the room, for that matter. I pulled the warm comforter off of me and saw the black smoke again on my chest out of the corner of my eye. I looked down at it, puzzled. I didn't feel any pain. I saw it open wide, the smoke black with distortion, but I didn't see a lot of distortion on my crystal.

This didn't make sense. I just had a distortion attack earlier, my crystal black with disease. The memory of the pain made me wince. Why did it all of a sudden get better? Why wasn't it specked with distortion? Most importantly, why wasn't I feeling any pain?

Don't get me wrong, I was enjoying the fact that I wasn't feeling any stabs inside of my chest. But I was still at a loss as to why I wasn't. If I knew how to close my case, I would have by now. I wish I would have payed attention to what Riley was doing earlier so I could have remembered how to do it.

My natural instinct was to search for Riley. I swiftly got out of his bed, opening the bedroom door quietly and surely. I peeked out into the hallway, the light on and every door closed but my room. I decided to head there first. I creeped down the hallway, avoiding every creaky floorboard that I knew about. I slowly pushed the door open a crack, just enough to push my head through. The bed was made, and my side lamp was on, but nobody was in there.

Weird.

I looked behind me, a sense that someone was there creeping up and down my spine. When I saw that nobody was around me, I shuffled lightly back down the hallway towards the stairs. None of the stairs creaked, so I was in luck there.

I hit the bottom of the stairs and was taken aback by the two things that I saw, to put it lightly. I stood there frozen, rooted to the floorboard that I stood on.

A Sirium stood not ten feet away from me. The reason that I knew this was because his distortion was clearly shown upon his neck, the black veins throbbing and lighting up with what looked like electricity. He had a dark look in his eyes, his pupils shining just like his black veins. His face was mostly covered in shadow, so I couldn't look and see if I could recognize him.

The other thing was my mom was not even three feet away from the Sirium.

Her short brunette hair was frayed, and her eyes were glazed over with fatigue. She was slightly hunched over, breathing heavy, as if she just put up a fight. She looked like she was in pain. She looked down at her hand, her wrist heavy with distortion veins. My mouth dropped.

"I had a lovely time with you, Renée," the Sirium said, his voice deep and saturated with pure distortion, complete darkness. "But now, we're over. For good. Such a shame you didn't know about me earlier..."

"Stop this," she begged, wincing at her wrist. "Please, just leave. Leave me and Bella alone."

He laughed deeply. "I'm afraid I can't let such a pure Alchemist heart go by like this."

"Just leave us alone!"

"Leave her alone!" I found myself crying. Nobody heard me. Nobody even stopped to look over at me. "Do you hear me? Leave her the hell alone!"

I heard someone run down the stairs behind me, skidding to a halt right beside me. I didn't look for a moment or two, tears starting to well in my eyes. I looked beside me, hoping to God it was Riley, and did a double take.

It was _me_.

I looked over myself, completely shocked. I was a few inches shorter, my face without worry lines, and my hair shorter. The other me looked at my mother in shock, just like I did, and tears ran down her face.

"Stop it!" the other me yelled at the Sirium. "Go away! Leave her alone, you bastard!"

He looked at the other me, the darkness now well into his eyes. His pupils covered his eye completely, his head raising in the shadows. The other me cried out, falling to her knees. She fell to the floor, screaming and crying in pain. Her case opened up, showing a crystal with only two specs of distortion and white smoke. Slowly but surely, the smoke turned gray. She scratched at it with two hands, trying to close it. She couldn't. I couldn't understand what she was doing to close it—she was just scratching. The gray was turning darker and darker by the second.

"Stop!" my mom screamed. "Not her! Please, oh God, not her!"

His gaze quickly shifted to my mom, and the other me stopped crying out in pain. Her case closed in one swift _pop_, and she stopped scratching at her chest. She didn't get up, however—she continued to cry, rolling over to face Mom. I knelt down next to her to make sure she was alright.

"Then it shall be you," he declared, and my mom began to scream.

"NO!" I yelled, leaping at the man, all intentions of snapping his neck. I jumped as soon as I got a foot away from him, my hands reaching for his neck.

I went right through him.

It was like he wasn't even there. I landed on the hardwood floor with a bang, my chin hitting off the hard floorboards. I only felt minimal pain and quickly rolled over to look at the scene from below. Why couldn't I touch him? Were Sirium ghost-like? I had never encountered one, or at least I don't think I ever have...

"Say goodbye, Bella," the Sirium said, his eyes glazing over with the shadow again. My mom fell to her knees, not making a sound. She held it all in, trying to put on a brave face. Her gentle features were scrunched and pained, her body stiff and shaking. Her case burst open, the pure crystal lighting the room up with a kind of brightness that you can only get from the purest crystals, the purest hearts...

Her white smoke turned black with ease, her crystal shooting out black rays of shadow. Black veins rooted up from her wrists, spreading up her arms and into her neck. She closed her eyes as her case completely turned black, a tornado of smoke now beginning to cover her torso.

I couldn't stop the tears from coming. What the hell was I just witnessing? I get to see my mom for the first time in years and here she is, dying in front of me. Becoming distorted, a Sirium.

"Bella," she said, looking at _me, _not the other Bella. "Bella."

"Mom, I'm here," I said, trying to blink the tears away so I could see her for the last time, even if it was like this. "I'll always be here, Mom."

"Mom, please don't go," the other me cried out. "Please don't go!"

"Be safe, honey," she told me, collapsing to the floor, her chocolate eyes glazing over with shadow. She stayed like that for a moment, lying there in a cloud of distortion. It completely creeped over her entire body before completely disappearing inside of her case, her eyes returning to normal.

She wasn't a Sirium. She was dead.

"No!" the other me cried, crawling over to her. "No! No, no! Mom! _Mom!"_

I couldn't say a word. My throat was swollen with hurt, and my eyes were full of pain. I punched the floor as hard as I could in my weak state, cursing at the world.

"Until next time, Bella," the sick creature said, and disappeared in a whirlwind of smoke.

So I lay there, drowning in my own tears. Both of us were crying, hurting. I crawled over to my dead mother, not ever seeing her like this before. Her eyes were still full of pain, full of hurt. The other Bella looked over at me.

"Bella." That's the only thing she said.

"Can you see me?" I asked her.

"Bella!" She kept repeating herself. "Bella! Bella!"

"What? What's wrong?"

"Bella!"

The last Bella wasn't the other me.

I shot up from bed, tears still soaking my face. I was panting so hard that it sounded as if I had run a mile non-stop. I looked to my right after a moment and saw the most beautiful thing in the world.

"Riley," I breathed, embracing him as hard as I possibly could. He held me in his arms tightly, not letting go even if his life depended on it. I sobbed hard into his shoulder, gripping his back and holding onto his shirt, no intentions of letting go anytime soon. He hushed me and kissed my shoulder lovingly.

"Bella, it's okay, it's me," he assured me, rocking me lightly. "It's over. You're with me now. It's okay."

"My mom, Riley, my mom," I managed to say. "My mom was killed by a Sirium."

He stopped rocking me for a moment. He pet my hair once before withdrawing from his tight hug. He looked at me, looking up and down my face. "What?"

"I saw her. She was killed by a Sirium. Not changed, she was killed by it."

He didn't say anything for a couple seconds. He swallowed hard, looking away from me. He loosened his grip on me. "That makes sense," he said, still not looking at me.

I sniffed and wiped some tears off my face. I stopped crying slightly, trying to figure out what he was saying. "What?" I asked. "What makes sense?"

"Her death," he said plainly. "It was ruled that she just had a heart attack, right? There was nothing that said that she had any unexplained black veins on her or anything. But...how?" He seemed to be talking to himself now. "How can a Sirium..."

"Riley, I'm scared." This whole time I thought that my mom was out there somewhere, full-Sirium and taking people's crystals. The way I saw it in her dream...it was like their ritual to turn people into Sirium while taking their crystal. It didn't make sense.

We stopped talking for a while after that. He held me and kissed me and promised to never let go. We lay down together on his bed, holding each other in a sort of embrace that showed that we cared about the other. Riley worried way too much about me. But then again, I guess I really did need to be worried about after that dream.

He kissed my forehead, my cheek, my hair, my hand...anywhere he could reach without disturbing me. I didn't want to fall asleep again, but I didn't think I would have that dream again, either. I believed that the dream was a one-time thing, trying to tell me something. I didn't know whether to fully believe it or not, but after what Riley told me, I knew for a fact that she was dead. It was really fucked up for me to think or say this, but I would rather my own mother be dead than be one of them. At least she was safe, wherever she was, away from this fucked up world that me and Riley live in. The only parts of her I had left was her home and pictures of her, along with random pieces of casual clothing that she barely wore. I never touched her room. I haven't been in there since the day she died...

The only thing that really puzzled me now was, did that really happen? Was I really there when it all happened? If this was true, how didn't I remember it? Did the dream only keep that from me?

Whatever the reason, I wanted to find out. I didn't want to remember, but then again, I did. I guess I was a masochist in this way, but I didn't care. I wanted the truth, so I would seek it.

Soon, Riley started to talk me sweetly to sleep again. This gave me a chance to look at his face. The black veins were there for sure, the white pulses crawling up and down them sickeningly. It wasn't as bad as before, but I could tell that he was still uncomfortable.

"Riley, I did that to you," I stated. I sounded like a little kid saying it, but it didn't really matter.

"I'm fine, Bella, honest," he assured me once again. "I found a way to get rid of it. It's nothing serious."

The word 'serious' reminded me of the word 'Sirium', and I flinched.

"Shh, calm down, everything is okay now," he whispered into my ear, his voice now smoothing over with his honey tone again. "I'm fine. You're safe. That's all that matters."

"I love you," I told him, not thinking about it.

He didn't say anything for a moment or two. All I could hear was his breathing. In, out. In, out...

"I love you too," he finally said, kissing my hair.

And then I fell into a black oblivion, no dreams.

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I might sound needy, but I need reviews. It just takes a quick second. :D Please? I need opinions.

I'm also working on the next chapter for One More Shot, and I don't have any ideas yet for the rewrites for Flash or Sun Through Rain or anything like that as of right now. But don't give up hope! :D I'm working on it.

**_Irrevocably__ Obsessed_**


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